By focusing on one particular re-education institution, this book offers a multifaceted analysis of practices of diagnosis and curing what was defined as «delinquency», «criminality» or «disorderly behaviour» at the turn of the twentieth century. The study provides an important corrective to the existing accounts of re-education by proposing an approach in which institutional practices are analysed both from above and from below. The book draws attention to the process of reforming identities - the construction of reformatory identities - as the core of residential re-education. Special emphasis is placed on the interplay of notions of gender and social background. The book is based on extensive archival research drawing from a wide range of new and neglected sources. The primary material includes a unique collection of documents produced by the girls of the Vuorela State Reform School in Finland. Narrative analysis of correspondence, and careful scrutiny of the official sources created for re-educational purposes, form a basis for the investigation of the interaction between pupils' own self-expression and the aims of re-education in the construction of reformed identities. The practices developed in Finland are carefully contextualised in the European history of re-education.

This innovative collection draws on original research to explore the dynamic interactions between parents, governments and their representatives across a range of European contexts; from democratic Britain and Finland, to Stalinist Russia and Fascist Italy. The authors pay close attention to the various relationships and dynamics between parents and the state, showing that the different parties were defined not solely by coercion or manipulation, but also by collaboration and negotiation. Parents were not passive recipients of government direction: rituals and cultures of parenting could both affirm and undermine state politics. Readers will find this collection crucial to understanding family life and the role of the state during a period when both underwent significant change.

The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World is a comprehensive examination of recent discussions and findings in the exciting field of cultural history. A synthesis of how the new cultural history has transformed the study of history, the volume is divided into three parts – medieval, early modern and modern – that emphasize the way people made sense of the world around them. Contributions cover such themes as material cultures of living, mobility and transport, cultural exchange and transfer, power and conflict, emotion and communication, and the history of the senses. The focus is on the Western world, but the notion of the West is a flexible one. In bringing together 36 authors from 15 countries, the book takes a wide geographical coverage, devoting continuous attention to global connections and the emerging trend of globalization. It builds a panorama of the transformation of Western identities, and the critical ramifications of that evolution from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, that offers the reader a wide-ranging illustration of the potentials of cultural history as a way of studying the past in a variety of times, spaces and aspects of human experience. Engaging with historiographical debate and covering a vast range of themes, periods and places, The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World is the ideal resource for cultural history students and scholars to understand and advance this dynamic field.

This open access book focuses on institutions that were produced and formed by the emerging welfare state. How were institutions experienced by the people who interacted with them? How did institutions as sites of experience shape and structure people’s everyday lives? Histories of institutions have mainly focused on the structures and power relations produced by institutional settings. Likewise, despite an extensive historiography of the welfare state, reflections on individuals’ experiences of welfare are few. By using ‘lived institutions’ as its conceptual frame, this edited collection merges the fields of institutional studies, the history of the welfare state – and the novel and vibrant field of the history of experience.

This book is the first history of the Irish juvenile justice system. It charts the emergence of the system from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. From the beginning, the system was dominated by a large network of reformatory and industrial schools which incarcerated tens of thousands of children and remained in existence into the late twentieth century. This dominance was eventually challenged by emerging discourses which emanated from the psychological sciences, social work, youth work and the children’s rights movement. The book draws from a wide range of official and unofficial sources in exploring the key rationalities underpinning the system. In adopting a governmentality approach, it also examines the technologies and forms of childhood identity that are employed to govern the child and young person within the context of the Irish juvenile justice system. This unique and original approach will appeal to legal scholars, criminologists and those with an interest in juvenile justice, history and social policy.

This book positions inquiries into the historical abuse of children in care within the context of transitional justice. It examines investigation, apology and redress processes across a range of Western nations to trace the growth of the movement, national particularities and the impact of the work on professionals involved.

This volume expands understandings of crafting practices, which in the past was the major relational interaction between the social agency of materials, technology, and people, in co-creating an emergent ever-changing world. The chapters discuss different ways that crafting in the present is useful in understanding crafting experiences and methods in the past, including experiments to reproduce ancient excavated objects, historical accounts of crafting methods and experiences, craft revivals, and teaching historical crafts at museums and schools. Crafting in the World is unique in the diversity of its theoretical and multidisciplinary approaches to researching crafting, not just as a set of techniques for producing functional objects, but as social practices and technical choices embodying cultural ideas, knowledge, and multiple interwoven social networks. Crafting expresses and constitutes mental schemas, identities, ideologies, and cultures. The multiple meanings and significances of crafting are explored from a great variety of disciplinary perspectives, including anthropology, archaeology, sociology, education, psychology, women’s studies, and ethnic studies. This book provides a deep temporal range and a global geographical scope, with case studies ranging from Europe, Africa, and Asia to the Americas and a global internet website for selling home crafted items.